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Source Decay
Source Decay is the 13th song on the album All Hail West Texas. Lyrics Once a week I make the drive two hours east to check the Austin post office box And I take the detour through our old neighborhood See all the Chevy Impalas in their front yards up on blocks And I park in an alley And I read through the postcards you continue to send Where as indirectly as you can You ask what I remember I like these torture devices from my old best friend Well, I'll tell you what I know like I swore I always would I don't think it's gonna do you any good I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok Down toward the water I always get a late start when the sun's going down and the traffic's thinning out and the glare is hard to take I wish the west Texas highway was a Möbius strip I could ride it out forever when I feel my heart break I almost swear I hear it happen It's that clear and that hard I come in off the highway and I park in my front yard I fall out of the car like a hostage from a plane Think of you a while Start wishing it would rain And I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok Down toward the water I come in to the house Put on a pot of coffee Walk the floors a little while I set your postcard on the table with all the others like it I start sorting through the pile I check the pictures and the postmarks and the captions and the stamps for signs of any pattern at all When I come up empty-handed the feeling almost overwhelms me I let a few of my defenses fall And I smile a bitter smile It's not a pretty thing to see I think about a railroad platform back in 1983 And I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok Down, down toward the water Comments by John Darnielle About this Song *"Well, there are two stories in the song: the present-day one, in which a person relates how he makes a weekly trip to Austin from somewhere two hours west, which he does specifically to retrieve mail from a P.O. box. He takes a long route there so he can drive through a place where he used to live - “our old neighborhood” - presumably the “our” is him & whoever he’s talking to, though that’s neither explicit nor certain. Then he drives home, brews some coffee, “walks the floors” (this is a reference to an old Ernest Tubb tune; Tubb was from north Texas) to sort out his thoughts, and, adding the one he just brought back from Austin, examines an ever-larger pile of postcards on the table, trying to put together the story he hopes they’re trying to tell. That this story, the backstory, the ones the postcards don’t tell, is obscure and uncertain — that’s kind of the point of the song. The backstory blurs and won’t cohere, the evidence mounts and is available but it just won’t gel into a satisfying narrative, which is a longstanding theme of mine, this way you sometimes really deeply and desperately need to get a clean narrative line through some story in your life, and when life won’t give you that, you finally have to smile about it, but it’s a pretty bitter smile, not the kind you smile when you’re feeling good about something. The second story in the song is the one that refuses to come clear; the above is just a parsing-out of the extant detail in the song, but to fill in the outlines of the second story would be very uncool of me because the song is about how those outlines are like blurry shapes in fading light that you eventually have to just accept as they are." -- tumblr Things Referenced in this Song *In episode 13 of I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, John said that Jenny is the sender of the postcards in this song. Live Shows this Song Was Played at *2001-04-21 - The Olde Club - Swarthmore, PA *2002-03-08 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL *2002-03-10 - The Green Room - Iowa City, IA *2002-03-11 - The Maintenance Shop - Ames, IA *2002-04-13 - Sky Church - Experience Music Project - Seattle, WA *2002-10-09 - The Cobblestone - Dublin, Ireland *2002-10-23 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA *2002-11-01 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL *2002-11-13 - Opolis - Norman, OK *2002-12-07 - Amstel Festival - Amsterdam, The Netherlands *2003-02-05 - Hanbury Ballroom - Brighton, England *2003-04-06 - Gate City Noise - Greensboro, NC *2003-04-06 - Go! Rehearsal Studios, Room 4 - Carrboro, NC *2003-04-08 - Beta Bar - Tallahassee, FL *2003-06-27 - Mains D'oeuvres, Mofo Festival - Paris, France *2003-07-02 - The Guinguette Pirate - Paris, France *2003-09-27 - Mercury - Austin, TX *2005-03-23 - Emo's - Austin, TX *2005-03-25 - Rubber Gloves - Denton, TX *2005-04-28 - Will's Pub - Orlando, FL *2005-05-07 - Northsix - Brooklyn, NY *2005-06-23 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA *2005-10-14 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL *2005-10-28 - Fuel Rocket Club - Dartmouth College - Hanover, NH *2005-10-31 - Knitting Factory - New York, NY *2006-09-21 - The Union - Athens, OH *2008-10-31 - The Foundation - Lubbock, TX *2008-11-07 - Theater of the Living Arts - Philadelphia, PA *2010-10-08 - Austin City Limits Festival - Austin, TX *2012-01-22 - Central Square Records - Seaside, FL *2012-10-27 - The Vic Theatre - Chicago, IL *2015-10-04 - Saturn - Birmingham, AL *2015-11-05 - Big Arts Schein Performance Hall - Sanibel Island Writer's Conference - Sanibel, FL *2016-09-23 - Castle Theatre - Bloomington, IL *2016-09-27 - Pabst Theater - Milwaukee, WI *2017-11-15 - Newport Music Hall - Columbus, OH *2019-11-16 - Brudenell Social Club - Leeds, England *2019-11-22 - Sala 0 - Madrid, Spain *2019-12-06 - The Haw River Ballroom - Graham, NC Videos of this Song *2003-06-27 - Mains D'oeuvres, Mofo Festival - Paris, France *2003-07-02 - The Guinguette Pirate - Paris, France *2012-01-22 - Central Square Records - Seaside, FL *2012-10-27 - The Vic Theatre - Chicago, IL *2017-11-15 - Newport Music Hall - Columbus, OH Category:All Hail West Texas songs Category:All Hail West Texas (Remastered) songs Category:Video